Weekly Newsletter

Unemployment Low, But Double The Percentage Of Employment Positions

Unemployment figures for the first quarter of 2019 are now available, compiled by Statistics Iceland. They show that unemployment is up 0.1% from the first quarter of 2018, and that the number of unemployed vastly outnumber the amount of available jobs.

81% of Iceland’s total population are currently on the job market. When excluding pensioners, school children, the severely disabled and others who cannot work, the total number of unemployed is about 6,200 people, or 3%.

At the same time, the number of available jobs is 3,500, or 1.5% of all jobs. As such, the unemployed outnumber the amount of available jobs by a factor of roughly 2 to 1.

When reviewing these numbers, Statistics Iceland emphasises that data collection concluded on March 31, just a few days after the collapse of WOW Air and the subsequent mass firing of some 1,100 people.

This being the case, WOW Air’s fall has had no effect on this data set.

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Your essential guide to life, travel and entertainment in Iceland.
Iceland's biggest and most widely read tourist publication. Delivers comprehensive content on all of the main topics of discourse in Iceland at each time: in cultural life, politics or general social affairs. A grand, continuously updated database of Iceland's main restaurants, clubs, cafes, shops, museums, tours and tourist attractions as well as a thorough events listing